


Wake Up and I'm Still Right Here

by 2towels



Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to a Galaxy Family [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abusive Parents, Child Abuse, Devotion, Domestic Violence, Hitchhiking, Hunk would do anything for Lance, I'm tagging this from memory because I refuse to re-read it, Lance would do anything for Hunk, Rough Childhoods, Violence, best friends to best friends forever, hunk angst (hangst)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22998004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2towels/pseuds/2towels
Summary: Through a gulp that turned into a few dry heaves and gags before finally subsiding into true deep breaths in sync with Lance, Hunk nodded frantically until he was able to think enough to respond. Swathes of cotton peeled away in his mind until he was able to think normally again, and he slowly lowered the blanket clutched in his grip and yanked at some point from Lance to nod, softer and gentler, when he realized Lance was probably waiting with unyielding patience for Hunk’s competence to return to him past his panic and blubbering. Seemingly out of nowhere, a soft tissue dabbed at Hunk’s cheeks.“We just need to hit our stride.” Hunk repeated, somewhat wondrously yet really just repeating what his friend had reassured him.==Hunk and Lance, on a journey to forget a lifetime of pain.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron)
Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to a Galaxy Family [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/729585
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Wake Up and I'm Still Right Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmeme/gifts).



> i'm going to start posting again because who cares lmao
> 
> AO3 said my tag was too long but don't come for me anybody for giving Hunk a sad background I wrote this before the last few seasons and thought he deserved some drama because voltron writers sure didn't care about giving him anything *ollies out*

There was a rare delay after Lance’s mother ran out to pick up his baby cousins from down the street while his aunt went to her night shift, a five-minute window where nobody was bustling around the house because his older brother wouldn’t be home from work just yet and his father was in town getting some work at the shop done and was MIA until dinner came. Lance had only witnessed the lull in the household bustle a handful of times in his life, and, ever the opportunist, he took the chance as soon as the silence filled his ears.

He shut himself up in his bedroom with fumbling fingers, feeling watched by all the looming spreads of admirable astronauts and brilliant views of Earth from so far. “Garrison Admissions, how may I direct your call?” A sweet voice asked.

Lance took a deep breath as he stared a stirring galaxy dead in the eye. “I was calling to ask about deferring my enrollment for a year.”

“One moment, sir.”

_____

Hunk met Lance through a declaration of their marriage to one another on a playground behind their elementary school at seven years old.

“My mama says you have to pick somebody to spend your life with who’s going to listen to what you say and be there for you!” Lance always spewed extreme marital wisdom such as that, and it may have genuinely been the only advice he ever took from his mother to heart.

“Okay.” Hunk had smiled from the mulch pile he was working on.

“Okay!?” Lance hollered, bouncing, “So, you’re the best listener in the class! And Miss Clay said you had perfect attendance this year! So, you’re going to be my husband and I’ll try to pay more attention because I already promised my mama that I would and I won’t get sick this year at all no matter what! That way I’m there for you!”

Hunk decided he liked Lance’s exciting company even better, and even though he didn’t want to be somebody’s “husband” because his mom always sounded so tired when she said that to people, he smiled still and turned to Lance to say, “Alright. Do you want to help me dig up rocks?”

“Uh, _yeah_!”

Lance didn’t change his mind even when Hunk missed the first few days after New Year’s, and they were inseparable from then on.

_____

Dave liked the gold and blue cans Hunk wasn’t allowed to touch and he didn’t like Hunk calling him dad—he got mad when Hunk said “Dave,” too, though, so Hunk wasn’t sure what to make of that. Hunk’s mom, Angelica, always said her husband just “makes a lot of mistakes” whenever they stayed with Nana Bev, but hearing that while looking at his mom so closely always sat uncomfortably in Hunk’s head.

Nana Bev called his mom an idiot when Hunk was in the room and called Hunk a genius when she thought he wasn’t. It was quiet, like one of her prayers, and Hunk knew his nana was very smart and on top of those things, so when he looked up the word the next time his mom left him at the library while she worked he was not disappointed with his findings.

The librarians became his friends, and they always remembered his name even when Hunk struggled to come up with theirs. He thought it was a serious problem, but Lance had yelled very loudly that it was Hunk just remembering “only what mattered” like “places, faces, and homework!”

Lance was terrible at math, and Hunk used to let him copy his worksheets until a week into the arrangement when Lance said he was afraid of his brain being broken by not knowing how to do things as well as the other kids, so Hunk stopped letting him copy and switched to showing him how to do stuff no matter how many times it took.

“My mama says people who are nasty to one another don’t really love each other, that they learned love all wrong; so, if I ever say something mean or gross you _have_ to tell me!” Lance said to him while they packed backpacks to go home one day. Hunk thought it was unspeakably, phenomenally wise, and he promised Lance he wasn’t mad at him about Lance getting them in trouble during their reading time. When Lance was satisfied he ran off to his older sister outside the classroom and Hunk walked home, thinking.

When he told his mom what Lance said, she thought it sounded wise, too, but she wouldn’t smile any more after Hunk mentioned Dave. “You can learn to love right, Hunky Monkey. Don’t you worry about that.” She said it softly, but it wasn’t him he was worried about that much.

_____

Hunk was thirteen when he saw it for the first time. Blue and gold cans were scattered around constantly and Hunk was more than old enough to know what it meant to have Dave home. Drinks, fights, screams, and an exhausting shebang for Hunk to ignore, and he indulged himself to be in the kitchen despite his mother’s gentle pleading for him to go upstairs to do some homework or head to Lance’s for some games. Hunk’s homework was already finished, though, and always was by the time his mom got home from work, and he wanted to be in the kitchen. He lived there, too, and if nobody else wanted a healthy and hearty meal then he would serve one for just himself no matter how territorial Dave wanted to be.

Hunk knew how to tune out the yelling, he was proficient at it. Dave was easy to ignore when he was being belligerent and annoying, and Victoria, his mom’s best friend, had taught him and his mom self-defense just a few odd weeks prior “just in case,” as she so seriously kept repeating, so Hunk felt prepared for anything to happen.

He was whisking together cornbread mix when his mother’s voice turned a little frantic, and Hunk listened in on their arguments for the first time in years, wondering if he would understand them more now that he felt grown.

“And what did I say about you working? You fucking reek like that shitty joint and you didn’t even bring anything. Some fucking homemaker you are.”

“David, I already told you you’re not getting in here right now. Go up to bed, I’ll wake you for dinner.” It was a simple thing to ask but his mom sounded close to tears, standing just past the threshold to the kitchen.

Hunk bitterly thought the dinner he was making wouldn’t go anywhere near Dave’s beer breath if he had anything to say about it, so he moved to tell him so, but when his dad took one single look at Hunk and the bright pink apron he had pulled on Dave sneered.

“Are you serious, Angie? You’ve got our son learning to do your fucking job? He’s already a pussy, you want him turning into a girl now?” There was venom in his voice, and Hunk knew Dave only called him his son when he was rightly, truly disgusted about something. Privately, Hunk thought he hadn’t earned the right to use those words when he hadn’t been to a single of the five science fairs he had won.

His mom’s eyes flashed, though, honing a stroke of bravery, “You do _not_ talk to him that way!” She cried but Dave shoved her away into the doorframe.

“Mom?” Hunk asked, shocked into softness while Dave leered down at him and gripped the strap of his apron.

“David, you let go of him!” His mom cried, jumping forward again, “I’m not going to say it again!”

Dave jumped towards her, dragging Hunk a foot, and slapped her hand with the back of his hand. “Damn right you won’t. Shut the fuck up a second, Angie.” He rolled his eyes when she started crying, and leaned down to look to Hunk’s eyes. “Tsuyoshi, you like cooking?”

Hunk’s eyes were boring into his mother at the corner of the kitchen instead of the identical older face before him. When Dave shook him by the apron, Hunk snapped out, “Yes. Mrs. Alvarez-McClain says I have a perfect palate.”

“Who the fuck is that?” The older man grunted, lips curling.

“My best friend’s mom.”

“Hunk—Dave let go of him, this isn’t necessary.” His mom hissed while she tried to wipe her wet face. Her cheek looked glowing red.

“You still call him that?” He grunted, stepping towards her again, “Don’t tell me what the fuck to do with my son, he’s got my genes, too, bitch. Since when do you have friends, kid? Thought you were too fucking sensitive for that shit.”

“We’ve always been friends.” Hunk said hotly, trying to drag himself from Dave’s grip. “It’s not my fault you didn’t fucking notice.”

“Hunk!” His mom said suddenly as Hunk felt a blow upside his head.

“Are you fucking backtalking me? Did your mom teach you that? You want what that bitch gets for it?”

“David he’s a _kid_ you can’t…” She yelped and Hunk heard another blow as he was jerked a bit, but he didn’t lift his wet eyes to see the damage.

“Answer me.” David said, shaking Hunk’s shoulder again.

“No.” Hunk’s voice was watery and he hated it. Still feeling stupid and brave and defiant, he said, “I learned it from you.”

A stillness seemed to cascade around the room, and Hunk stiffened as Dave leaned in closer, breath rancid. “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, jackass. I remember when I was your age, just like you, and I won’t be a hypocrite and put some sense into you just for taking after your old man.” Hunk bit his tongue hard, and Dave’s tone was almost rational as he continued, “But no more of this palate cooking shit. You look like a fucking wiener and if you’re doing your mom’s job what’s the point of keeping her around, yeah?”

Dave laughed and left the room like no damage had been inflicted, stopping at the fridge to grab a gold and blue can on his way out.

The moment the patio door closed, Angie was flocked to Hunk, who began crying against his own volition.

“We’re going to Vicky’s, okay, Hunky Monkey?” She asked, voice thick and kissing his temple gently when he nodded, “You can make dinner there, don’t you listen to your father, he doesn’t know how talented you are.” Hunk wondered if she knew, too, but only switched off the oven and hurried up the stairs to pack his bags.

Even though Hunk said he was fine and was able to stop crying, Vicky gave him an ice pack and told him the kitchen was all his for the week. Vicky’s kitchen was a lot nicer and a lot better stocked, so it was only a few hours before Hunk gave in and started a new dinner for the home’s hungry bellies, but he couldn’t quite get rid of the rock sitting in his stomach and the nasty taste in his mouth over the night. His mom and Vicky were sitting in the dining room, and Hunk felt safer and quieter, so he thought it was appropriate to call Lance to try and ease his tensions and see how his trip to his Aunt’s house at the cape went.

Despite Lance’s constant exuberance, he was more intuitive than anyone gave him credit for, and between Hunk searing chicken and stirring together a cream sauce, Lance softly asked, “Are you okay?”

And Lance was too kind to ever lie to, so Hunk quietly confessed the night’s events. Lance listened with a stillness from his side and Hunk could tell he was sounding more and more nervous to his friend but he couldn’t stop talking, especially after he spotted the half-melted ice pack on the counter.

“Hunk,” Lance said carefully, “My mom says,”

“I don’t want to know what your mom says about love.” Hunk blubbered suddenly, feeling vicious and rotten, turning to watch his mom from afar. He regretted the words, knowing it was unfair of him and his mom would disapprove. Lance hadn’t said anything yet, but Hunk had known him long enough to sense his hurt. “Sorry. Tell me.” In the dining room, Vicky gently touched at his mother’s face and looked like she was whispering something. His mother smiled soft and pretty and openly.

“It’s okay.” Lance assured instantly, “My mom says if you’re able to hurt something than you don’t really love it. I think she just says that to get Adrian to stop twisting my arm, but I do think it’s true. I could never hurt you, and you would never hurt me or your mom or nana, and your mom would never hurt you and I know because I met her. That’s all love. What your d—” He paused, and Hunk sucked in a breath, “What Dave did and said to you and your mom isn’t love. AND,” His voice was much louder, “Nobody with a heart would be mean to you ever so Dave is obviously a VAMPIRE and I’m going to cut his head off like they do in supernatural!”

Hunk laughed loudly and wetly before he could help himself. “That show is so gross.” He sniffed, “When are you going to move on to something else?”

“Never!” Lance sounded truly and rightfully offended, a gasp in his voice, “They just introduced this angel guy named Castiel and he’s so funny! You should watch it with me again, my mom says we’re going to get cable again soon so I can stop pirating it late. Supernatural Sleepovers!”

Turning off the stove, Hunk mumbled, “Absolutely not, every scene in that show is gross and bloody. Also, you’re definitely going to get a virus on your brother’s computer.”

“I have adblock, I’m good!”

“That’s _not_ how that works—”

_____

Lance worked his jaw with an uncharacteristic seriousness, his eyes dimmed as he looked down to Hunk’s hands in his own on their lunch table. He had news about the Garrison he seemed reluctant to share but Hunk couldn’t decide if it was refusal to accept his leaving or embarrassment for having to share his rejection. They were both getting harder to read and Hunk wondered if Lance was closing himself off or if Hunk was and misunderstanding things was a result of that. “We could leave.” Lance said suddenly, a soft thumb brushing against where the bruising on Hunk’s arm started. “Would you want to?”

“What, like, my house? Obviously.” Hunk chuckled before he could help it, rubbing his face with the hand Lance doesn’t have grappled the firmest. Lance looked like there was so much to say contained in him that it stresses Hunk out in turn. “I don’t want to leave my mom, I guess.”

“We could leave Miami completely. Florida completely. _America_ completely, if you wanted, dude.” Lance’s voice was wet, a sure sign of the tears he wants to release, and Hunk couldn’t believe they were having this conversation in the middle of the day at school. “What would your mom actually say about that? Do you think she wants you sticking around?” At his tone, Lance seemed to backpedal, wanting to rephrase, but Hunk latched on too quickly.

“What does that mean? You think my mom would rather kick me out?” Hunk couldn’t help but ask, a sort of desperation in his voice that clawed at his throat and tried to pry at the message Lance was sending him.

Lance shook his head desperately. “You know that’s not what I mean, no. God, I—Like, wouldn’t…wouldn’t she want you to get away from him? Don’t you think she would want you getting out of here?” He rolled up Hunk’s sleeve and Hunk tensed because he had worn them long for a reason. Lance does cry then, shoving his arm in his face to draw less attention to them in their back corner of the lunch room and trying to keep his cool because Hunk would panic if someone else knew besides his best friend.

Hunk’s never thought about leaving his mom, though, and he doesn’t like the idea of what else would go on once he did.

_____

“This _bites_.” Lance howled quietly while he ruffled his sweaty hair with his uncast arm. “It’s so hot out here, did we know it was going to be this freaking hot?”

Hunk passed him a water bottle quietly, a hum under his breath as he kept his other arm firmly outstretched to the road. “We checked the weather twice and decided it was worth it, remember?”

Lance moaned, the water bottle’s nozzle between his teeth while he spoke. “No, I don’t remember. I have brain damage. I’m melting. Is it a heat wave or something?”

“I really don’t think this is as bad as Miami.” Hunk tried conversationally, laughing as Lance sputtered into his guzzling water and gave a mock offended look at the claim.

Once hydrated, he assumed his position beside Hunk again, hiking up his basketball shorts and showing a fair bit of leg on the insistence that it would probably get them a ride—creepy or not—more than their stubby thumbs had been doing. So far, the experiment had only given Hunk enough anxiety from creepy onlookers to last them a lifetime. “This is _dry_ heat,” He explained with no patience and all bitterness, “Texas is the fucking worst.” His distain was clear in his cursing, forgetting to censor himself as was his usual habit when he was accustomed to being surrounded by kids, “I bet nobody’s stopping because they’re racist. Wait,” He started peeling off his sock and shoe, and Hunk sighed very quietly as he watched his friend work, “I bet I can catch a weirdo.” He wiggled his toes in the air as he outstretched his leg again.

“How long can you even hold your leg like that?” Hunk had to ask, shaking his head fondly and hiking their backpacks higher onto his shoulders while Lance grappled at the underside of his knee to keep firm in his position.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Hunky Monkey?” Lance teased back, a wink to accompany the tease in his voice. Hunk rolled his eyes, but Lance grinned and wiggled his toes again to say, “Long time, no worries.”

_____

“I want to kidnap your son.” Lance said first because he panicked.

Angelica blinked at him and gestured for him to sit with tired and wary eyes, and Lance felt bad for grimacing before he did so, knowing it was impolite but being unable to think of when Hunk’s dad could be coming home or where he was then or what he was doing. “Go on.” Angelica said when Lance did nothing but think.

“Uh,” He flinched into himself because she looked so soft and kind and there was a smudge of a bruise below her cheekbone Lance wished he could erase like all the ones he’d seen painted on Hunk. He tried to fight his tears when he went on to say, “Hunk didn’t apply to any colleges, did you know that? He’s won, like, every robotics and science fair in the area and he’s got a million scholarships lined up and he didn’t even—”

“I know.” His mom assured, much quieter and hesitant. Her hands curled together on the tabletop, a defensive and small position, and Lance felt his heart seize.

He swallowed thickly. “He doesn’t want to leave you alone. What would happen if he does? Would you go somewhere?”

An affronted look blinked onto her face, and she reared her head back, “Now, Lance, I don’t want you to have to worry about me, you’re much too young to—”

“Please, Mrs. Garrett.” Her gaze was stern on him, daring him to go on and insist what she should do and he knew he was overstepping all of his boundaries and he should have talked to somebody a long time ago (his mom, at least, he thinks could have helped them so, so much). He continued hesitantly, “I just want Hunk to be safe. If I—If I take him out of here, will you get out too?”

Something sharpened in her eyes, and Lance watched while, as soon as it had appeared, it crumbled completely.

_____

Lance puffed out a long breath of air and decided he was going to have to be the ray of sunshine there but hated it at that moment because his arm was sore. Hunk said, “Okay, so, the lady said a hospital.”

“I think her name was Allura. What does she know, man? We could be fine…”

“We’re definitely not fine, Lance!” Hunk snapped, throwing his hands up to tug at his ribbon. Lance flinched and clucked at himself for the involuntary response to his friend’s outburst. “We’re bleeding and we’re acting like idiots and we did this wrong! We don’t even have a plan!”

Lance’s hands began tapping on his knees, one much softer at the discomfort, then his knees began bouncing under them while he stared off. “I know.” He said tersely, “I know, I know, I know. Okay. So, we’ll plan. That’ll—That’s step one. Step one is to always have a plan then, would that make this better? They can be short plans. Grand scale plan: See America. Short scale plan: Uh…”

“See a _doctor_.” Hunk stressed, tapping away at his phone. “There’s a hospital a couple blocks from here. Let’s just sit here for a few more minutes and we’ll get on our way there, good?”

Something twisted in Lance—his failure spot, he liked to call it—and he bit his lip as he watched his best friend rest his head in his heads as he sat on the bench beside Lance. “We’re not going to let this be a bust.” Lance said, “This can’t just be a giant wasted opportunity, alright? We—I’m coming back for you. Have I said this one yet?”

Hunk looked at him like he was delirious, and he was still sporting a fat bandage on his forehead, so Lance babbled on, “My mom used to say that devotion wasn’t always dependent on—”

“Staying with people you love, but coming back when you’re apart. Yeah,” Hunk’s voice was soft, tender, “You’ve said that one, man. Your mom’s a smart lady.”

“I’m _devoted_ to you, Mr. Kindergarten Husband Hunk.” Lance said, trying not to be emotional, “I’m going to see this through with you. We’re going to heal up, see this entire country, and when we’re done we’ll pick our favorite spot and settle down so we can be happy and healthy for the rest of our lives.”

_____

“Oh my god, is that a van?” Hunk asked, trying not to sound as worried as he was.

Lance whooped, “I told you I’d get a weirdo!” He dropped his leg elegantly as the pink van cruised by them at a slowing roll, crunching against the shoulder of the highway and breezing down further while their hazards blinked on. “Do you think it was the toes?” Lance laughed as he shoved his foot back into his shoe, jogging lightly to keep up with the van that was still rolling along.

When it did finally stop, it was a fair distance from their starting point and Hunk felt like they had hunted it down more than anything. It also (less than conveniently) began pouring smoke from its front hood, and three bodies piled out of it quickly.

_____

“I haven’t seen you call your mom since we started.” Hunk quietly tried, knowing Lance was just as restless beside him in the dark motel room. “She’s probably worried.”

Lance rolled over and away. “She’s not, she texts me every day with all the mail I’ve gotten, and I snuck in a really fast chat while you were picking over deodorants at Walmart.”

Hunk felt a suffocation in him begin to build, pressing at all of his seams and creating something he was unable to identify but was stubbornly familiar with. Suddenly, it was impossible to stop the words from bursting forth, so he felt himself clench at the sheets and rolled away, too. “She’ll be worried when she finds out about your arm.” It was a small sentence that felt herculean in the way his legs shook under the sheets, his fingers tightening uncertainly. It was too hot to be as freezing as he felt.

“She doesn’t have to—”

“You shouldn’t keep _secrets_ from your mom, Lance.” Hunk cut him off before he could even begin to pursue that train of thought, not wanting to entertain the idea that one adventure that was supposedly going to save their lives was going to drastically change Lance’s confiding in his mother or his blurting every secret to her or needing her advice on every little to extraordinary problem regarding any of his relations to anyone around him. Hunk, very realistically, wanted to sit up only to throw up onto the gritty carpet and begin heaving through a sob. They didn’t know what they were doing, barely had any savings, and it was too obvious for them to keep ignoring the way they were with Lance’s optimism or Hunk’s timid faith in Lance.

Hunk flinched when Lance sat up and hated that he did. He flinched again when Lance set a gentle hand on Hunk’s shoulder, but Lance’s voice did begin to calm his erratic breaths when he started speaking again after a few long moments. “I think you’re panicking, and I understand why, and I’m sorry I don’t know how to help you.” He began thickly, his care and concern as present as it had ever been, “But I really do think this is good for us and I really think we can figure it out as we go, we just need to wing it for just this little tiny bit until we hit our stupid stride.”

Through a gulp that turned into a few dry heaves and gags before finally subsiding into true deep breaths in sync with Lance, Hunk nodded frantically until he was able to think enough to respond. Swathes of cotton peeled away in his mind until he was able to think normally again, and he slowly lowered the blanket clutched in his grip and yanked at some point from Lance to nod again, softer and gentler, when he realized Lance was probably waiting with unyielding patience for Hunk’s competence to return to him past his panic and blubbering. Seemingly out of nowhere, a soft tissue dabbed at Hunk’s cheeks.

“We just need to hit our stride.” Hunk repeated, somewhat wondrously yet really just repeating what his friend had reassured him.

Still, Lance beamed with a kindness in his eyes. “Exactly. We’re going to find out stride, I promise I wouldn’t be dragging you out all over if I didn’t think there was a real chance we would run into something worth our attention in the great beyond here, okay? We’re explorers now. We get to see the world.”

“Call your mom in the morning and tell her the truth.”

“Er—Okay, I promise I’ll tell her everything that’s happening, buddy.”

And Hunk knew he was telling the truth.

_____

“That person has white hair.” Lance breathed as they fast-walked to the smoking vehicle, it’s occupants looking in different states of bicker as they popped the hood, “Hunk that _lady_ has white hair—”

“Why would it be—”

“ALLURA!” Lance cooed in a scream that lost all potential charm, running at a gentle pace for Hunk to just barely jog after and for the van occupants to flinch up at the sound of. The broadest of the three, also white-haired, seemed to take a firm moment before positioning himself calmly before the two others at Lance’s approach, and Lance immediately decided that he liked him. “Long time no see!” he called anyway, “I went to the hospital because of you!” Bad opening but he needed her to know he respected her opinion if she remembered them.

“Ah.” He thought he heard within a few feet of the wall of a man and just five feet of the car. Hunk huffed behind him as he caught up, elbowing Lance for some unspoken reason he would not abide by. “It’s you two.”

“These guys alright, Allura?” The man was pretty intimidating up close, with a thin scar across his nose and two flexing arms of different degrees of lethal—one metal, even—but he didn’t obstruct Lance’s progress with anything more than a friendly smile in greeting, as if he was exuding an air of non-hostility to counteract his innate ability to throw either of them off of the highway by nature.

“Quite, Shiro.” Allura waved a thin hand from the hood of the car, using it then to bat away some more tufts of smoke that poured away. “They’re, uh, some fellows we met—quite a ways back…”

Lance, unoffended by her not remembering, beamed at her attempt anyway. “It’s alright, princess, it was, like, two whole weeks ago, no biggie!”

The shorter little lady managed to pipe in, though, hidden from the van a moment but just as affected by the smoke if her waving hands were any indication, “We met them in a Denny’s parking lot. Whaddup.”

Shiro moved, still smiling, though he did outstretch a hand in a shake as they passed and switched hands appropriately to accommodate Lance’s cast as needed for the proper introduction. “I’m Lance, this is my best buddy Hunk, and we’re just trying to get some place, how does that sound?”

“Terrible right now, honestly.” The shortest of the travelers said, “This guy’s shot, I’m sitting back down. Allura call triple A.”

Allura looked to Shiro, who shrugged, “I don’t know anything about that, hate to disappoint,” and Lance, an opportunist, hollered, “Now wait, my buddy here knows cars, you guys let us bum around a hot minute or six and I promise this car will never function less than fit as a fiddle.”

“Oh my god, Lance.” Hunk, pimped out, groaned, trying to hide how pleased he also was at the opportunity. Allura looked as if he wanted to hesitate, but Hunk was already peeking under the hood, and there was nothing to stop an experienced mechanic from fixing what he knew how.

_____

“No, I don’t know how long it’s going to be. Probably until it feels right.” Lance mumbled into the receiver, feeling dumb as he waited for a gentle berating from his mother for his poor course of actions thus far.

He watched from the edge of the dark parking lot as Shiro pumped gas into the van, yawning obnoxiously and stretching and lunging when he thought Lance wasn’t looking to stretch out his legs. Inside the van, the rest of the three slept, and it was cozier than it sounded like it could have been and Lance thought there was something unnaturally right so far about the arrangement they had been building thus far. They were onto something.

“I already took care of everything at the Garrison, I told you.” He assured again, trying not to sound impatient with somebody he loved and respected so much because he knew his mother would absolutely not have an ounce of it. “It’s just...you don’t know how hard it would be for me to go there now if I knew Hunk wasn’t there or even just anywhere else, and that would eat at me, and I know it’s not—No, I know—I mean…you don’t…What I’m trying to say is, I’m not going to leave him behind, even if I’m not actually doing that by going to school. We’ve been in this together since the dawn of time. You don’t know how I feel about this, I’m—”

_____

Lance leaned in close to Hunk, a teasing and gentle smile on his lips, as he noticed the distraction in Hunk’s eyes, fixated on the countryside rolling by the window as Allura sped ever just the tiniest bit while they drove. “My mom says,” Lance whispered over the seat between them, “that devotion is sometimes like sowing—”

“Dude, I know you just want my granola bar, and I’m telling you none of this will work on me.” Hunk refused his gaze, his expression, and his granola bar plea all at once, and Shiro only glanced back in a confused sympathy as the sole other in hearing range.

_____

Allura seemed hesitant, but she nodded as Hunk gave a confident thumbs up and called, “Fire her up!” The van purred to life once more from its smoky catastrophe at the side of the road, and Lance nearly cried with delight at the prospect of not only getting into an air conditioned van instead of the dry, unforgiving heat, but getting to hitchhike for a potential extended period of time due to Hunk’s profound talents in fixing things, which were being momentously cheered on by an extremely enthusiastic van team.

“Voltron’s never been this quiet…” Allura remarked almost gently to herself as they all filed into the van in a cluster, seeming awed in her driver’s seat, “I don’t know what to do without her puttering so much when she begins.”

“And it’s all totally free!” Lance chimed in, “With the price of dragging two handsome studs along and giving us a water bottle, _please_!” He did not expect one to be chucked at him from the passenger side but he would take what he got, and Hunk, when Lance glanced over to him to take in his friend’s processing and pass the water, seemed to be uncertainly exuding positive energy.

Lance tentatively decided they could be close to their stupid stride.

**Author's Note:**

> i finished this literally like over a year ago and I wanted to post more at the same time so i saved it????? i think maybe posting this now instead of continuing to wait (??) will spur some kind of momentum in me to complete everything else I still feel in some kind of passion for these characters. Something like that.
> 
> Also i get it i have a lot of really long sentences i'm self conscious about them but i usually fix them in post and THERE'S NO POST EDITING for this fic we're going nakey
> 
> Original title was from Boyz II Men "A song for Mama" but it wasn't power ballad enough for me so I changed it to "Hold You Down" by X Ambassadors so that's the general tone I went for here like a healthy mix of the two


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